I grow designers into top-tier professionals

Helping product designers develop their craft, build products that customers love, and do the best work of their careers

For designers who want to support software teams at fast-growing startups, I take my coaching to the next level. My goal is to get the people I work with into the top five percent of product designers in ability.

I draw from everything I’ve learned in my career—building my own degree in human-computer interaction, designing products, running a product design studio at a fast-growing start up, creating a design curriculum at the University of Michigan, and coaching designers as a professional consultant.

Helping people design better UI is part of the process. But much more important is the “soft skills” of design—how to set better goals, how to communicate better, how to manage your own creative energy, and how to design well inside an organization. I teach designers to own their creative process: to frame problems, work in fast iterations, and get lots of feedback.

Design is not easy. I push students to the edge of their comfort zone and challenge them to do the best work of their lives. Many students have become life-long friends, and many of them credit our time together as the most formative period of their career.

Topics

I collaborate with each student on a learning plan tailored to their goals. Topics usually include:

Principles

High expectations, high support- I make myself available to lend skills and emotional support through the process of learning. In exchange, I ask a lot of my students: their willingness to work, to think, to try new things, to let their work be seen, and to step out of their comfort zone.

Experiential learning- I don’t ask designers to do busywork. I have my students design real products for their employer and their own personal ideas. I find this to be much faster, more motivating, and much more effective way to teach.

or just learning tips for making it through the emotional grind of startup life.

Jeff Sorensen

Co-Founder of optiMize; Director for Social Innovation at University of Michigan LSA

I began reflecting on how the hell I got here, going from a scared college freshman to shipping several features at Google this summer & currently working on a high profile Microsoft AI project.

Despite being an UMSI UX student, it was ENTR 390 that taught me the most about what a career in UX might look like.

It was the most well taught, high functioning and practical course I've taken at UMich.

My future projects & portfolio write-ups that would later get me these dream internships were all modeled after the one I made for 390.

I know how much work you three put in this course, and I want to convey how grateful I am for it.

And beyond the basic design process and projects, you three also put an emphasis on ethics, inclusivity and accessibility in design that is so often overlooked in most courses.

Dania Abdulhamid

Designer at Microsoft, Google

I worked with Sam while he consulting for a startup where I was an intern. And I don't think it's too dramatic to say that his coaching alone made my internship feel worthwhile.

He was a great coach and mentor, guiding me through different phases of the design process. As industry tools come and go, it's this type of high-level thinking that I know will serve me well for a lifetime.